Distant Worlds - new Final Fantasy concert series
 

A new Final Fantasy concert series will premiere in Stockholm December 4th. Nobuo Uematsu will be in attendance. The concert is produced by AWR Music Productions and will include the following pieces:

Final Fantasy series: Main Theme, Swing de Chocobo
Final Fantasy I-III: Medley
Final Fantasy III DS: Opening
Final Fantasy IV: Theme of Love
Final Fantasy V: Dear Friends
Final Fantasy VI: Maria and Draco (Opera)
Final Fantasy VII: One-Winged Angel, Opening - Bombing Mission, Aerith's Theme
Final Fantasy VIII: Liberi Fatali, Fisherman's Horizon, Love Grows, Don't be Afraid
Final Fantasy IX: Vamo' Alla Flamenco
Final Fantasy X: To Zanarkand
Final Fantasy XI: Memoro de la Stono - Distant Worlds

A second date has been announced: Chicago March 1th 2008. On the same day as the concert in Stockholm in December, a new album with select pieces from the concert will be released. The music is performed by Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. The album will be possible to purchase through the official web site.

Read more here: Distant Worlds - music from FINAL FANTASY

Oh neat, an album. =p

I wonder why it's so rare that those formation release one.

Why have a concert series with nothing new? Only reason I would even attend it is I haven't met Uematsu yet.

*slaps Square-Enix* Bad Squeenix!

Hey! A Final Fantasy concert! Amazing! Never heard that such ever existed!

Keep in mind that Final Fantasy concerts are not that common around the world, only in Japan and USA. But even in the US, there has not been a Final Fantasy concert since 2005.

Of course, it would be nice with some new arrangements, like FFVI Ending, loads of tunes from FFVII and so on, but I guess that is kept for the future. And do not forget that the FFIII DS Opening is a new arrangement.

I don't see the FFIII DS Opening being mentioned either at the official site or over at spelmusik.net. Where does that from?

(vem från spelmusik.net är du förresten?)

Must be nice for some people, but I've heard all that stuff in concert already over Dear Friends and More Friends. Also, the 20020220, More Friends in LA, and other orchestral FF albums have already covered all of these tracks, I believe. I think it's a shame there's nothing new.

At the Program section of the official site:;)
Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY

Okay, that's right. Well, let's see how they define worldwide. Next stop after Stockholm is Chicago. Wow...

2002 : Fuck, we never get those awesome FF concerts they get in Japan.

2007 : Bah, another FF concert. Who cares about that shit anyway ?

Also, yeah, SWEDEN. And an album.

Yeah, I made the mistake of thinking that the tracklist for the album reflected the entire concert program, yesterday =p

My friend showed me this just a moment ago, and at the first glance I literally shouted out "I MUST GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" :D It has been my dream to see a concert with the FF music and here it is (including the guy who made it)! I'm definately getting the Greet & Meet tickets too so that I can meet with him :P I'M SO DAMN EXCITED!

This is only good news if people actually get to listen it live. For others who can only get the album, well, nothing's new. I'm in Australia so obviously I can't go hear it live...

I personally want a Kingdom Hearts or Chrono concert. But that's just me. Or at least one that focuses on Mitsuda or Shimomura's music... Uematsu isn't the only game composer in Square ya know.:rolleyes:

Ooooh hell yeah! That would be a great announcement, also I have nothing from it (excepting a CD). Don't know about Chrono Cross but Chrono Trigger was never released in Europe so only old RPG fans are knowing it. ;(

Yeah that's true, I'd absolutely love a concert with music from the Chrono games, I haven't really played Kingdom Hearts (yet) so I don't know about the music from there but ah well I'd be good to get some other CD material than FF concerts. But I don't really mind when I get to go see it myself which I've always wanted to do once. And yeah, I wouldn't mind going to a concert with Masashi Hamauzus music neither.

Anyways, I've gotten tickets for both the concert and the Meet & Greet now so I'll just have to endure the excruciating wait for it :gonk: It's gonna be soooooooooooooooooo fun

Yeah, I would like to see some Saga Frontier II, Unlimited Saga, or his FFX contributions performed. Hamauzu's music sounds the best when performed, imo :D! A Kingdom Hearts concert would be cool too!

I would agree that it would be kind of refreshing to hear some newer tunes orchestrated, and even at a FF concert, I begin to wonder why they still only choose Uematsu-tracks. I mean, since FFX there are many other composers included in the FF-series, which seem to replace Uematsu somehow anyway, so why not choose something composed by them (Hamauzo, Nakano, Sakimoto etc)? I would definetly love to hear something related to the newer games instead of the same classics again and again and again (the arrangements won't be new anyway, I assume).

But... overall I think it's still great that there are concerts like that, even with that kind of track lists, defienetly better than no concert at all.

Why no new music. That is incredibly stupid.

Well, even if they wanted to just put out Uematsu music... at LEAST orchestrate new pieces. I'd love to hear numerous pieces from FF 6, 7, 9, and even 10.

Well its just like when people go to a John Williams concert, its always Star Wars, Harry Potter etc etc, rather than the ones that may be more obscure like Catch me if you can. Cause its more popular and famous.

Still, you'd think there would be a Chrono or KH concert by now. While Chrono is probably a little old, we all saw how popular and famous KH became...

I guess its inevitable that rehashing the same popular music is much safer than trying to arrange something new. I mean, since Square hasn't made anything new themselves for a while, why take the same risk with the musical concerts?

Squenix doesn't even have anything to do with these concerts, this one is being put on by Arnie Roth's own Production company, so there's no risk for S-E whatsoever.

(and Arnie doesn't exactly know much about VGM series, so that's why there's no variety... He's simply cashing in on what's already on the plate)

While I enthusiasticly supported the previous Chicago concerts, I don't agree to being milked into paying for the exact same shows again. No sale this time.

Yeah... where's the FFXII music?

I guess it's more of a Uematsu concert then.

I think the classics would be a great idea for the concert, but I agree that, when it comes to the cd release, if there's nothing new people probably won't buy it.
You never know, they may surprise us with some crazy arrangements.


If they came to England I'd be amazed. *dreams*

FFXII music sucks ass anyway (even though the opening and ending themes were great orchestrations by Matsuo), has no emotion.

Ticket bought. \o I'll be there, like every time. This will be so much fun.

Kishin: See you in Stockholm! And yes, it will be great indeed.

Should I travel across Europe to see it? lol
I wish I had the money to...

The tickets for the Meet & Greet are sold out now, so if anyone of you had planned on meeting him but not gotten a ticket yet, tough luck :P I'm happy I've gotten one, so I can't wait to actually meet him. I wonder though how many tickets it was in the first place.

Less than a month left! Woo :D

150 tickets. No wonder they sold out quickly!

Dammit why can't more concerts be like VGL with their meet and greets? They let anyone with a ticket in, just for a limited time, then they keep rotating people in and out. All it takes is a little organization and everyone can have a chance to the meet and greet. And VGL's meet and greet has more people than Distand Worlds....

Oh well, gratz to those who were the lucky 150.

VGL is a pretty special case. Meet and greets for commercial artists typically run how Distant Worlds/PLAY! runs, with premium ticketing. Think about it, yeah, the artist likes to see their fans, etc, but it must be pretty tiring sitting there for that long and not really having meaningful conversation with anyone. It's the same thing over and over again, you know?

Yeah, although they didn't sell out that quickly did they? Do you know an estimate of the time it took to sell them all (like how many days after release)?

Oh and does anyone know if Uematsu speak English or does he have a translator with him or something? I guess he has a bit of English knowledge, but will he be able to hold a conversation with us all in English or how will it work?

Is VGL that special? I think what they do is a common courtesy and the right mind set

We had all our guests meeting all the composers and our musicians for our A Night in Fantasia concerts. Yes it's tiring, but at the same time rewarding. How often do composers get to hear their music live and greet fans?

Surely by far not as often as Nobuo Uematsu and Arnie Roth apparently do.

Well Uematsu attended our concert and greeted all his fan and gave out autographs. He seems to have enjoyed it quite a bit.

Oh, I'm not saying some composers don't enjoy it. I'm sure there are those who don't enjoy it, though.

When you open a free-for-all meet and greet like VGL does, they usually go on... and on... and on, up to three hours after the concert. Koji Kondo had to retire from the VGL show at GDC last year at 12am, which disappointed a lot of people, but yeah, I'm sure he was tired!

I love what VGL does with the meet and greet, but you have to admit that it's atypical, so I don't understand why people complain so much about paying a premium for the meet and greet when it's pretty standard in the music industry.

Anyway, please bring Eminence and Uematsu-san to California already. =)

I remember looking at jobs for Square-enix once and, on nearly every single one, you needed to be able to speak English and Japanese. But, considering Uematsu's skill, they may have passed that for him!

I'm guessing he probably will know english..

I spoke to Uematsu when I met him in Stockholm last year. He could understand somewhat of what I said and could also make me understand what he said (and hum Matoya's Cave for me), so I guess you can at least say some words to him and he will answer.

He's been there a long time way before those rules were imposed. He can't really speak much english, all his assistant did the talking even in Japanese.

Additional Spam:
I'm planning to do something bigger than just brin Mr Uematsu out =D

New interview with Arnie Roth about Distant Worlds.

Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy Interview

Interesting stuff regarding a possible DVD release, and I hope he was made aware of the other composers who have composed music for Final Fantasy titles. I doubt the set list will change much, however.

Speaking as a video game composer and the person who has arranged over 40 video game concert meet & greets that have included over 250 industry people.... I can tell you that we all enjoy talking and listening to the fans who grace us with their presence. Lets face it... the video game industry hasn't exactly done a stellar job of focusing on the actual people who MAKE the games or music... so we've had to do it for ourselves. All of the game developers love the fact that they get a chance to meet the public in a way that is respecting their work, career and lives.

I perosonally believe it's an absolute travesty that some game concerts out there are changing people $125 - $150 to meet game composers. I can see if the industry was established so much that tens of thousands of people were selling out every show... then obviously you would need to somehow limit the number of people willing to attend the meet & greet (although when we played VGL at the Hollywood Bowl twice to over 11,000 people... we didn't).

When we play a normal show there are about 2,500 people in the audience. We find an average of about 800 - 1,000 people stay after for the meet & greet. It normally takes us about 2 - 3 hours to get through the entire line (and mostly because we have so many game industry people at our meet & greets).

Our goal has always been to spread the word about game music and game music composers to as many people as possible. I believe that by having a free meet & greet that our goals of exposing people to the talent of game music are being accomplished on a greater scale.

But hey... that's just me and my outlook. It's fine to have other opinions and to set concerts up in different ways. Just giving my opinion from someone who knows how cool it is to meet the fans interested enough to want to meet us.


Tommy



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Additional Spam:
Exactly!! I agree 100%!


Tommy

Don't take what I said as a complaint of any sort! I absolutely love what VGL does, and I think it's an impressive feat to get everyone there for 2-3 hours. I've gone through those lines, so I know first-hand how amazing it is.

I'm simply saying that I don't mind paying a premium to attend a meet and greet, since I also understand that's how it's done elsewhere in the industry, and I personally find it worth it.

Keep up the good work, Tommy. =)

No... not at all. I didn't think you were complaining. Just wanted to give my perspective and experience with other industry folks about having to sit for hours and meet the public. We all love it!

T.T.

Distant Worlds in Stockholm's Konserthuset was by a million miles the best vgm concert I've ever been to (it was my third). No crappy compositions or dull arrangements of Halo or old Amiga music I personally don't care for in particular. I go for the emotion rush, and Uematsu's music gives just that to me. I grew up with his music and the games that came as a side bonus to his music (heh), so it's only natural. And The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is one of (if not the) best orchestra I've witnessed live.

Of course I could write down a "dream concert" of my own that would of course include music outside of Final Fantasy too, but DW is currently the best thing the vgm world has to offer to me these days in terms of live concerts (VGL and Play! are both a bit multi-faced and all-praising to me).

Or I could just arrange my own concert where the orchestra would play just what I want.

Anyway, I approve of the Distant Worlds, so awesome. <3 And the recording done by TRSPO sold at the venues is by far the best orchestral arrangement/performance cd I've heard inside the vgm circles.

I agree. Even though the charge was only 25 USD in Distant Worlds, I didn't plan on paying to see Nobuo Uematsu (since I've already met him in a more "intimate" surrounding than a cold, impersonal, paid-for meet&greet could ever offer). It's outrageous, but there are (a lot of) stupid enough people to pay for it. And the concert organizers sure could use every extra penny they get from cd sales and other collateral stuff.

The free meet&greet with Yamaoka & co earlier this year was great. How come Arnie gave up on that. =/

Does that mean you picked it up? :rolleyes: I'd love to take a listen to it, but for some reason it seems you can't order it from the official site yet.

I picked up three. Let's see if we can work something out. ;)

The first print was completely sold out during the half-time pause of the concert, so maybe that's why it's unorderable. =D

Kishin: Great that you also loved the concert! Too bad the time passed so fast and I could not find you. But hey, there will be more concerts. Maybe even in Helsinki. Yes, you read that right. Read more in my interview with Arnie Roth here:

Spelmusik.net - Coverage in English

For me, Maria and Draco was the best moment of the concert. And the encore, with Terra's Theme accompanied with a credit list of the people involved in Distant Worlds, done by in-game graphics from the opening of Final Fantasy VI, was fantastic. As the FF fan I am, I loved the most of the concert - including some favorites like Don't be Afraid, Opening ~ Bombing Mission, Memoro de la Stono ~ Distant Worlds and Love Grows.

The CD is indeed really really nice :D Hopefully you guys can preorder it soon.

Additional Spam:
The Distant Worlds CD is now available at Amazon.com:
Amazon.com: Distant Worlds: music from Final Fantasy: Music: Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra,Arnie Roth,Nobuo Uematsu

Thought I'd pop in and tell what I thought of the concert.

First, I have to say, this was the best friggin musical event I've ever been to, and one of the best days in my life. The whole day had been fantastic, and when it came to the actual concert I was overwhelmed by it. The atmosphere before the concert was very nice, I talked with lots of people and I made sure I was one of the first buyers of the merchandise and CD (I was going to make the first CD sold mine, but I only managed to get the fifth :p). I bought the CD and the hawt T-shirt, I didn't buy the poster because I don't like them anyways.

Sitting there in my seat, waiting for the orchestra to come out and the concert to begin I saw this little man with black hair a mustache and glasses coming in through the door, taking a seat 2 rows below me. "Hey, wait a minute... Isn't that... Uematsu?? :o". Yes indeed, it was the one and only, Uematsu Nobou. So that meant I got to enjoy the concert literally with Uematsu himself :) Could you have more luck than that? (maybe if you sat on the same row as him I guess). BTW, I noticed in this youtube video that you can actually see me in the uppermost right corner on 0:08 taking pictures of him when he came back to his seat after the break in the middle of the concert. I never got any good shots though, because the camera was my friends and it was pure crap and only took like 1 shot every ten seconds so I didn't manage to get any good ones (he turned away his head every time), plus the quality was crap.

I can't find words for how great the concert was. Everything, simply everything was perfect. The symphony orchestra, the soloists, and the great conductor Arnie Roth couldn't have done it much better. I seriously had constant goosebumps through the first half of the concert, because it was so damn good. The video clips they had put together timed surprisingly well with the actual music and totally brought up the total experience with in game videos/CG videos and artwork. Like when they brought up an ingame video from FF VIII and they ran around till they got into a random encounter, and BAM, "Don't be Afraid" started up :D

All songs were superb, and it's hard to tell which were my favorites. The "Maria and Draco" opera was great, Love Grows was great, Fisherman's Horizon was great, Aerith's theme was great, Terra's theme was great, One Winged Angel was great, what the heck, everything was great.

And then I got to meet Uematsu and Arnie Roth after the concert! :D It felt so unreal meeting Uematsu so I didn't really know what to say, I had thought up a lot of things to say but when it came to it I didn't say that very much except thanking him for the great concert and asking him to sign my stuff. But I don't regret it that much, as I got to shake his hand and got to take a picture with me and him (I would show it to you, but it's on my friends camera so I'll show it to you guys later). I also spoke with Arnie Roth, and as he is fluent in English it was also easier to get through to him and bring up a discussion. Oh and yeah I got both of their autographs on the CD and the concert tickets.

The CD is the best of all orchestral versions of the Final Fantasy songs IMO, So I recommend you to get it if you're a die hard Final Fantasy fan/VGM fan.

After the concert I also met this real cute and hot gaming girl (didn't think they existed) that had played a lot of FF games, it was really fun discussing the games and concert with her. We actually shared a taxi to Uppsala because that's where we both were going. But I regret I didn't get her mail or something :tpg: Ah well. Not that it has anything to do with the concert :p

If you weren't there, you really really missed something. I pity all you people who couldn't be there that magical evening.

Jumpstarting this old thread.

Did anyone else attend the Chicago performance last night? It was the first time I heard video game music performed live and it was a good treat. Arnie Roth was a great conductor and his enthusiasm shone through wonderfully, and his arrangement of the Chocobo theme was stellar.

Unfortunately there seemed to be some balance issues; the brass section was either strangely outnumbered or they played the entire evening with a deliberate restraint. Trumpet lines were masked entirely on occasion, and the horn moments in high-energy pieces like Bombing Mission were held back.

The greatest part of the evening though was seeing all the unwashed unkempt men arriving in dirty jeans and oversized hooded sweatshirts. Way to go all out with the concert attire, guys.

Impressions of the Chicago US debut:

Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy Chicago.

Looked like a good show. Quite cool that they added more pieces to the set list. They could have cut it at the 13 that are on the CD.

Additional Spam:
Oh, and about this. You should read up about the show. It's not meant to be some high-brow symphonic concert. It's for fans, and fans apparently wear jeans and hoodies.

Surely you agree there's a difference between casual and uncouth?

Well, sure. But time and time again people have had this discussion. This is the first concert a lot of these people have attended, symphonic or otherwise.

Anyway, talk to any of these concert promoters and symphony directors, they love it. They're tapping into a new demographic, and based on the slump in orchestral concert sales around the world, that's exactly what they need. This exact sentiment is even expressed in the mission statement on the Eminence website.

I agree. I do think it's remarkable that such symphony orchestras are drawing new crowds. As I commented to my girlfriend who attended the concert with me, you can't complain about the near-universal appeal this music has.

This is probably considered late, but I've just listened to the Album, and my god, best performance and recording quality, ever. Trumps even the old FF orchestral studio recorded albums. Probably the only flaw to me was the choir not having the epic sound like the original Liberi Fatali from the game soundtrack.

Excellant album, I hope they do one for other FF and game arrangments at this amazing quality.

I was fortunate enough to meet Uematsu for free, but I was at the right place at the right time. The group I was with waited almost two hours to meet him and we were the last ones to talk to him. He did seem to pick up English phrases rather quickly. I suspect he understands it, but might not speak it all that well. At any rate, I was so nervous about meeting my musical hero, that I didn't speak all that much. I really wanted to tell him that he's the reason why I write music. I'm sure there will be other opportunities to tell him, though ;).

Another awesome thing that night was when I performed Kingdom Hearts music on the piano on video for Tim (webmaster of Squaresound) and Michael Gluck (Piano Squall). I didn't think I was that good, but it impressed them so I guess that's what matters :D! I had performed Passion, Hikari, and Dearly Beloved. Michael performed Terra's Theme, Super Mario World, Every Heart, and Time's Scar. Twas a good evening, indeed!

Please don't forget Mr Shirou Hamaguchi. He is the one responsible for the orchestration of Final Fantasy since VII's Sephiroth and Mr Uematsu would not have been able to achieve what he has today if it wasn't for Mr Hamaguchi.

The quite spoken Mr Hamaguchi has an aura about him and his earnest feeling towards music really reflect on his work.

Orchestrators in general are completely unrecognized and underappreciated. Whether one wants to admit it or not, Hamaguchi has made Uematsu's work far less lame and boring.

Yeah, agreed. It's somewhat of a let down that some of the old school composers can't keep up with the technology. Then again, a lot of these guys weren't musicians to begin with, and didn't receive any formal training. So I don't know what to think.

Thing is, it doesn't take actual training to come up with a nice melody or tune, but it takes alot of training to arrange it in the most beautiful and provocative way. I don't think its about the technology, but actual training.

I mean, we all hum and whistle tunes as we walk on the street, but to then take that tune and arrange it for a band, orchestra? Takes lessons AND talent, which most of us lack.

Personally, while I love Uematsu's tunes, he is unfortunatly not that good at arranging them half the time. To me, the better composer/arrangers are people like Mitsuda, Shimomura, Sakimoto etc. Nobuo its good at creating nice memorable melodies, and that's about the extent to how much I like his work. Hamaguchi is the one that makes his music shine.

Though speaking of technology, I wish Sakimoto can work with better synths, like, Jeremy Soule style synths. The man's work is just hindered when its done with the PS2 crappy synth. I mean god, compare FF12 with Romeo X Juliet, which do you think SOUNDS better in its execution?

Just listened to this cd for the first time. WOW! I was totally ready to write it off as yet ANOTHER cd of these old ass arrangements. But it really is the definitive version with this recording.

Although the climax to Maria and Draco is not as good as the one in More Friends, but it's still pretty good.

It's unrelated, but Kairi, Samurai Pizza Cats are AWESOME! Cool avatar!

I feel the same, I dunno if its the recording or the singers, but I felt the climax was more epic in More Friends as well.

But soundwise, this concert CD has the best sound and best recording. Every instrument can be heard crisp clear, instead of the percussions being a bit muffled in the background or something.

Thanks, its part of the GFF Samurai Pizza Cats Avatar/Sig Chain.